Actions save location?

[Rob Art Illustration]

Hi
Really dumb question probably, but I'm stuck. When I save a user action where can I find it?

Also, can I edit the action to have a neutral save location like /data_set_file/ instead of my HD path?
Thanks

Rob

[Srishti Bali]

Hi there,

Sorry about the delay. I am hopeful that your query was resolved. You can save the Action Set at your preffered location.

• Select a set. 

  Note: If you want to save a single action, first create an action set and move the action to the new set.

• Choose Save Actions from the Actions panel menu.
  

  • Type a name for the set, choose a location, and click Save. You can save the file anywhere. You can save only the entire contents of a set in the Actions panel, not individual actions.

For more detail, please check out this help article: https://helpx.adobe.com/in/illustrator/using/automation-actions.html

Feel free to let us know if you still need assistance.

Regards,

Srishti

[Rob Art Illustration]

Hi Srishti
I mean the physical location on my computer, not the location of a menu item to allow me to save them.

Basically teh path to the action file.

Thanks

Rob

[Kurt Gold]

Rob,

recorded actions are stored/embedded in the general Illustrator Preferences file.

You may extract them from there, but this can be a bit cumbersome because a lot of other settings are there at the same time.

Therefore, in case you are going to share the actions, it is recommendable to save the action sets as .aia files, so you or someone else can easily import them through the Actions palette flyout menu.

[Rob Art Illustration]

Hi (SORRY THIS IS DUPICATED, THERE WAS A BUG THAT DIDN"T SHOW MY POSTS)
Can someone tell me where I can find the Action Script I just created in the Actions Panel, in my Finder (Mac OS/ latest illustrator)?
I can't seem to find it in my Library or application folders.

Also, is it possible to edit the action Save As comment to have a more generic path than the specific one it created; like ../file_location/ ?

Thanks

Rob

[Flowgun]

Actions that you haven't imported yet are saved in the "Adobe Illustrator Prefs" file (has no extension) in the Illustrator settings folder within the Roaming folder (for Mac: ~/Library/Applications Support folder).

This is another area that shows the clunkiness of Illustrator that I've been ranting about for years. The file also saves location to libraries used, and if you simply copy/paste it between versions or between computers, it will keep on referring to the libraries in the old installation, so this is not the way to do it. If you back-up your actions manually, then you have also to load them manually as Illustrator can't simply accept its own .aia files as an argument to load them! you have to go through a whole process in order to get to use Illustrator as you want to after an update or after switching to another computer. Developers should work on decoupling the currently-used actions and workspace and so on from other data that Illustrator uses internally.

Anyways, you can modify that file with a text editor (e.g: Notepad++ , and choose "Visual Basic" as the language for ease of use). you'll find your actions under "/SavedSet" section. they will not have human-readable names, but HEX names, so you can use a converter to find the actions you need by their name. and Somehow, this is the most user-friendly way to transfer your actions and have them loaded at Illustrator startup! At least people who can write scripts can automatize this process. Also, make sure to modify "SavedSetCount". if the count is below the number of action sets you have, they won't load (but it can be way above the number of sets you have without an issue).

Hope that answers your question, and I hope that one day I have the opportunity to spar against an Illustrator developer so I can finally vent in a proper way and find my peace of mind.